


Fog Portrait

by so_shhy, Tawabids



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-03
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 08:06:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/so_shhy/pseuds/so_shhy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tawabids/pseuds/Tawabids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the man stepped out of a swathe of mist and made him an offer, Clint figured it couldn’t make anything worse.</p><p>Or, eight foggy days of Clint and Phil (plus one foggy morning).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 2001

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Feelstide prompt 58: foggy morning. The only bit that actually involves a foggy morning was written by Tawabids (who also beta'd the rest) but I'm going to count it as fulfilling the prompt by delegation. It's a skill, okay?

**2001**

Clint Barton was twenty-five and he probably wouldn’t live to see twenty-six.

He’d been stupid. Stupid. He’d always been a dumb fuck, and he’d made plenty of bad choices in his time, but he’d never been in quite this much trouble before. He should have just taken out the targets, but they’d been kids, practically, the teenage kids of some politician who needed to be made an example of. His conscience had chosen the exact wrong time to kick in, and his erstwhile client turned out to be both unforgiving and well-connected. Now what seemed like every criminal organisation on the east coast was out for his blood. Whenever he stopped to catch his breath someone started shooting at him again.

Chances were there was a gun pointing at him that very moment.

He’d lost his _bow_ , for fuck’s sake, running out of that last motel room in his underwear. The clothing he had replaced, but that bow had been part of him.

It was freezing. The fog was thick enough to drench his thin shirt and leave droplets dripping off his hair. His mismatched shoes were sodden. Altogether, he must have cut a pathetic figure. He couldn’t even remember when he’d last eaten.

When the man stepped out of a swathe of mist and made him an offer, Clint figured it couldn’t make anything worse.

He signed his soul away wrapped in a blanket in the back of a nondescript van, in exchange for a cup of sweet takeout coffee, a baloney sandwich and the promise of a warm place to sleep. Right then, it seemed well worth the price.

‘Who are you, anyway?’ Clint asked. Now he was fed and reasonably dry, he could barely keep his eyes open, but even half asleep it seemed important to know.

‘I told you. The Strategic Homeland-’

‘No,’ Clint said through a yawn. ‘Who are _you_?’

‘My name’s Coulson,’ the man said. ‘And from now on, you call me sir.’


	2. 2004

**2004**

‘I don’t have the shot, _sir_ ,’ Clint said firmly.

‘Yes you do.’

Clint hadn’t seen so much of Coulson in the couple of years or since his recruitment, but he’d heard a lot. When he’d run into Natasha a week after he’d brought her in, sitting in the cafeteria eating a salad when he’d expected her to still be rotting in an interrogation room somewhere, she’d just shrugged and said, ‘One of the suits decided to take me on.’ Clint wasn’t surprised that it turned out to be him.

So Coulson was Tasha’s full-time handler, and she seemed to respect him well enough. Maybe she wouldn’t when she found out he had ordered Clint to fire a poisoned tipped arrow into a square where she was standing, in fog thick enough that he could practically have swum in it.

‘No visual on the target.’

‘You know the lie of the land, Hawkeye. You’ve been watching from this rooftop for days. It’s an easy shot. Agent Romanoff is leaning against the left-hand stone lion. Carter is directly in front of the door. Hit the door dead centre. You can’t miss him.’

‘The hell I can’t.’ For once he didn’t believe anyone would blame him for disobeying a direct order. He couldn’t see ten feet in front of his face. ‘Negative, sir. Too much risk to our agent.’

‘You’re going to make this shot, Agent Barton. I need you to trust me on this. Do you trust me?’

‘No, sir. I know fuck all about you.’

‘Clint.’

‘ _Sir,_ ’ Clint said furiously, flinching. It felt all wrong. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had called him by his given name.

‘My name’s Phil. Did you know that?’

‘Your name’s Coulson.’

‘I have a sister in Maine. I collect Captain America trading cards. My first dog, Bones, died on my eighth birthday. And I know you can make this shot.’

‘Sir.’

‘Clint.’

Clint took a shaky breath. ‘What if I hit Tasha?’

‘Then you aim your next shot further to the right.’

‘ _Fuck_ , you’re a cold bastard.’

‘You can add it to the list of things you know about me.’ Coulson - _Phil_ , Clint swore never, ever to call him - made a small noise over the coms, that could have been a laugh or just a sigh. ‘You won’t miss, Clint.’

Clint looked down at his hands. He’d nocked the arrow without noticing. ‘I can’t do it.’ He imagined how it would feel, hitting Natasha, then shifting his aim and shooting again. He’d have time. People moved on reflex when they heard a gunshot, but when someone standing by them suddenly sprouted an arrow from the throat they tended to stare for a handy extra second or so. And he had three of these arrows, all tipped with one of the most potent known neurotoxins. If he so much as scratched Natasha that would be it.

‘I promise, you can. Take it.’ Suddenly the soft voice was all command. ‘Now.’

Clint let the arrow go.

A shrill, desperate scream rang out across the square, its echoes muted and dulled by the fog. Clint was on his feet in an instant, second shot be damned. ‘Tasha!’

‘She’s _fine_ ,’ Coulson snapped in his ear. ‘If she’s screaming, she’s fine. Stand down Hawkeye, you’ve done your job.’

Clint sobbed out a breath as Natasha’s screams went on, panicky and utterly convincing. ‘Fuck. Fuck you, sir. I could have killed her.’

‘Meet at the extraction point.’

‘ _Fuck you_ ,’ Clint snapped again. He wasn’t going within a mile of Coulson. He’d make his own way back.

Somewhat to his surprise, when he finally walked into HQ it seemed like he still had a job. According to the report Coulson had filed, his mission performance had been exemplary.

What-the-fuck-ever.

It was ten days before Natasha was pulled out of the undercover op. Clint sought her out the second he could, grabbed her and hugged her for all he was worth. ‘Nat. I’m really, _really_ glad I didn’t kill you.’

She laughed, making no particular attempt to hug him back. ‘Idiot. You don’t miss.’

‘It’s Hawk _eye_. I don’t shoot blind, OK? Jesus. Your handler’s an asshole.’

‘You had the shot.’ She shrugged. ‘He just made sure you took it.’


	3. 2006

**2006**

One of the less glamorous aspects of undercover work was the necessity to take commercial flights. Especially when the runways were all shut because of bad weather.

‘ _I_ could fly in this,’ Clint grumbled for the hundredth time, looking out of the plate glass windows at the barely visible glow of lights from the opposite terminal. ‘Wanna hijack a plane?’

‘No.’

‘Bribe a pilot?’

‘No.’

‘I’m so fucking bored.’

‘Not my problem.’

‘Tasha-a-a. C’mon. Can we play a game or something?’

‘I spy,’ Natasha said coldly, ‘with my little eye, something beginning with _shut the fuck up or I’m going to stab you._ ’ She re-crossed her legs elegantly and returned her attention to her book.

Clint made a face at her. He was restless from a week of tension and watching and waiting, and now forced inactivity in a godawful bustling airport. ‘Don’t pretend you’re not reading Harry Potter between plain covers.’

‘They will never find your body.’

‘Put it where you like, just so long as you don’t stash it anywhere in this shithole.’ He got to his feet. Anything was better than more inactivity. Even airport shopping.

When he got back half an hour later she was still engrossed. He flopped down into his seat, dumping his purchases on the table. A pack of cards, a bag of peanut M&Ms, and a large bottle from the duty-free shop. ‘Poker? Please?’

‘You’re a four-year-old.’

‘Four year olds don’t bring vodka.’

Natasha shrugged. ‘A Russian four-year-old.’

‘Nat, did you just make a joke? Wow, hold on while I mark it in the calendar.’ Clint grinned. She was talking to him, which meant she’d caved. She was a fun poker companion. If he had to be stuck in an airport with anyone he was glad it was her. Tossing the cards into a professional shuffle, he began to plan how he was going to cheat this time.

After three hours of play the fog seemed just as impenetrable, the level of vodka had significantly diminished, and Clint was coming out ahead, though possibly because Natasha was absent-mindedly snacking on her stash of chips.

He was also a little drunk, which was why he didn’t pick up on the tone in her voice when she said, ‘He’s interested in you, you know.’

‘Who?’ He glanced round the overcrowded airport cafe. He hadn’t seen anyone checking him out, but he didn’t always notice. Murderous HYDRA thugs, yes. Guys staring at his ass, not so much.

‘No, dummy. Coulson.’

‘ _What?_ ’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Interested in you as an asset. He wants to take you on. He thinks we work well together.’

‘He’s an _asshole_ ,’ Clint said, though he’d worked with Coulson several times since that mission and he knew it wasn’t actually true. Coulson was utterly ruthless and possibly some kind of android, but he was fair. And Clint _had_ made the shot, after all. But still it seemed unlikely. ‘Nobody wants to take me on.’

Natasha gave him a look that said _are you honestly questioning my intel?_ and then ignored the statement. ‘He’ll ask you soon. What will you say?’

A permanent handler arrangement had to be agreed on both sides. Right now, Clint worked with whoever requested him for a mission, which meant he got the occasional total prick and he was expected to suck it up. But SHIELD knew better than to assign an asset full-time to someone he or she didn’t get on with. If Coulson put in the request, Clint could refuse and stay in the pool.

‘You like him?’

‘I can work with him.’ She paused thoughtfully. ‘Yes. I like him.’

Clint stared at her. Natasha didn’t like anyone. He wasn’t even sure if she liked _him_ , though she put up with his weird, fraternal adoration with good grace. Admitting that she liked Coulson wasn’t something he thought he’d ever hear her say.

‘The fog’s lifting,’ Natasha commented and got to her feet. She busied herself transferring the remaining M&Ms from the napkins back into their bag.

***

Her intel was good. It always was. Coulson’s request came through two weeks later. It took another three for Clint to decide. Finally he signed on the dotted line, with an uncomfortable feeling that he was signing his soul away yet again.


	4. 2007

**2007**

Those first six months were intense but simple, a quick-fire run of straightforward missions. A good thing, too. They needed simple now that the Natasha-and-Coulson duo had become a trio. To Clint, it felt like they were all off-kilter. Not just him and Coulson, but him and Natasha all over again. It was different, working with her like this, when Coulson was the calm voice of reason and authority in both their ears. She was sharper, more controlled, altogether _better_ at what she did, and it astonished him. He’d always thought she was as close to perfect as she could get.

As for Clint, he was anything but better. He found himself running his mouth more, snarking until Natasha snapped at him over the comms, fidgeting in briefings until Coulson pursed his lips and glared a warning. He was a pain in the ass, even more so than usual, and he knew it, and he couldn’t stop.

Their team wasn’t going to last.

Now they were in London, just him and Coulson. Natasha was benched for this mission, hobbling around headquarters on a fractured ankle and giving coldly murderous looks to junior agents who presumed to stare at her bruised face.

‘Isn’t this kind of cliché, sir?’ Clint asked, two hours in. He’d been determinedly keeping his mouth shut up until then, but he was bound to break sooner or later.

Coulson had him posing as a street vendor with a cart selling roasted nuts, which meant that at least he was warm, if saturated with the smell of caramelised sugar. At some point someone was supposed to come along and order three packets from him with very specific wording, and Clint would slip in the special roasted nut with the microchip inside. In his opinion the whole thing was totally ridiculous.

On top of that, London’s weather was appalling. The big dome of St Pauls was mostly obscured and the strange, curvy struts of the footbridge over the Thames disappeared into nothingness along with a marching cargo of mist-dewed tourists.

‘Spy stuff,’ Clint said uncomfortably, poking at his pan of almonds yet again. At least he knew how to do this part of the job, from his days manning fairground stalls. ‘Nat’s stuff. Give me something to shoot, Coulson.’

‘There are always pigeons,’ Coulson suggested mildly, ‘if you’re really that desperate.’

‘One, I’m in the middle of the street. And two, I’m not taking pot shots at the pigeons by St Pauls. That’s sick, sir. Haven’t you seen Mary Poppins?’

‘Yes. They’re not sweet little birds that need feeding, they’re flying rats.’

‘No they’re not. If a flying rat came by I’d shoot the fucker, no problem.’

Coulson’s laugh echoed down the comms, and Clint froze, confused, suddenly realising the strangeness of the easy exchange. Coulson didn’t laugh. Coulson didn’t chat either. For six solid months the agent had been focused on the mission, or the debrief, or the prep. Clint had never seen him any other way.

‘Hey, Coulson,’ he said cautiously, ‘what’s going on? Is our guy a no-show?’

‘Got it in one, Barton.’

There was a slight echo to the words. Clint glanced quickly to his left, to catch sight of a suited man descending the steps towards him. His shoulders tensed. There was no reason for him to feel uneasy, he hadn’t done anything wrong, but it felt as though he was waiting for a rebuke.

‘You can leave the cart,’ Coulson said. ‘Its real owner is coming back for it.’ He picked up one of Clint’s little packages of nuts as he walked past. ‘Come on.’

‘Where?’

‘We might as well see some of the sights while we’re here.’

Suspiciously, Clint trailed at his heels down the steps and then up the textured metal ramps and onto the bridge itself. Coulson stopped about halfway across. He propped himself against the wide railing, looking out into the mist. Clint stood for a moment, then went to lean next to him. ‘Not sure what I’m meant to be looking at, sir.’

‘London,’ Coulson said blandly.

‘It’s nice?’ Clint ventured. He could see the river down below. Other than that, the view was a whole lot of swirling grey.

Coulson laughed again. ‘One of my favourite cities. I wanted to show it to you while we finally had a moment between ops. You can see Tower Bridge over that way when the weather’s clear, and if you walk the other way there’s the Houses of Parliament, Horse Guard’s Parade, Buckingham Palace.’

‘Sounds… historic,’ Clint said, as, _‘I wanted to show it to you,’_ repeated bewilderingly in his mind. Coulson had wanted him to see it? Why?

‘Yes. It’s a mess,’ Coulson said. ‘All tangled up in its own history. None of it makes sense, but it still works.’

Clint shook his head. ‘I thought you liked things neat.’

‘I make things neat. There’s a difference.’ Coulson turned, giving Clint a rueful little smile. ‘Not much chance of seeing anything today, though. And we have to head back tonight.’ He shrugged. ‘Some unsympathetic people caught up with our contact. We’ll need to think again.’

‘So this whole trip was kind of a washout, huh?’

‘I don’t know,’ Coulson said lightly, ‘I got a packet of roasted almonds out of it.’ He popped another one into his mouth. ‘They’re good.’


	5. 2008

**2008**

‘You’re not gonna find me, sir,’ Clint said. Really it was more of a gurgle, a weak, bubbling whisper. ‘Not in all this.’ He could hear the helicopter, distant and tinny, somewhere away across the hills. Too far. Dizzily, he tried to remember how accurate a trace you could get on a radio signal. Or could you get one at all? Was that something else? He _knew_ this stuff but he couldn’t remember.

But no. Stupid, he told himself. He’d forgotten. He didn’t have a radio signal. He didn’t have a radio. He was talking to nobody and nobody was talking back. Maybe the helicopter wasn’t even real. A pilot would be crazy to fly through this fog. No reference points. Definitely no chance of spotting the long, meandering blood trail on the green hillside.

‘Sir,’ he said to the emptiness.

‘You’re going to be fine, Barton,’ Coulson said in his mind. He was right there, holding out a cup of coffee, wearing a sleek suit and a mild smile. ‘You look cold. Take it. It’s got two spoonsful of sugar. Makes the medicine go down.’

‘Thanks,’ Clint whispered as the figure dissolved into the mist, ‘but I’m all out of souls.’

It didn’t really hurt any more. The wound, that is. It hurt to be alone. Clint really hadn’t thought he’d be left behind, but he should have known. Most people left him behind in the end.

‘I like him, you know,’ Natasha said, sitting beside him cross legged on the grass. ‘He made you take the shot.’

‘I know,’ Clint mumbled. ‘I like him too.’ His attempt at a sigh turned into little shallow, choking gasps. When he could speak again he added, ‘Want my soul back, though.’

‘Too late for that.’ She pulled a book out of her little wheeled suitcase, the one she’d used when she was posing as a flight attendant. ‘Quiet, now.’

‘Tasha-a-a.’

‘No more talking, Clint.’

Clint obediently fell silent. He drifted. When he closed his eyes, it didn’t seem to make any difference to what he saw. Just a pale, featureless blur. Natasha had wandered off somewhere, on her next op, maybe. She’d gone without him, but that was OK. From now on she’d have to get used to working alone.

‘You’re going to be fine Barton,’ Coulson said again. Clint couldn’t focus on his face this time, couldn’t see his suit or his coffee cup. It was too blurry. Coulson sounded different, though. Urgent. Upset. ‘Clint. Come on, stay with me. Look at me.’

‘I can’t see you, sir,’ Clint said. ‘Can’t see anything. Just white.’

***

The next thing he knew Natasha had come back and everything was hazy and pleasant.

‘Tasha?’

‘Hey, idiot,’ she said, bending over him. _Bed_ , he thought vaguely, and, _hospital_ , and _home_.

‘Thirsty.’

A bendy straw was placed between his lips. She let him drink, tilting her head to assess him. ‘Does anything hurt?’

Nothing did. He felt dazed and warm and generally awesome. ‘Lotsa drugs?’

‘The best they have.’ She reached out to touch his cheek, then took a small, meaningful step back from the bed. He looked past her, blinking until his eyes cleared.

Coulson’s pen paused briefly in its motion over a printed report. He was sitting in a chair against the wall, looking a little tired, and rumpled in a way Clint had never seen him before, but perfectly composed as he acknowledged, ‘Clint.’

‘Sir,’ Clint managed. This Coulson was real, he thought, pleased. One of the others must have been real too. That was good. Although the memories were fuzzy and dreamlike, he still knew Coulson had come for him. He should say thank you, but he couldn’t remember how to make the words come out. ‘Hi,’ he said instead, and smiled. 

Suddenly, unexpectedly, Coulson smiled back. His impassive mask melted away all at once. He looked so happy, Clint thought. _Happy to see me._ It seemed perfectly natural. Clint was happy to see him too, after all. Relaxing, he let himself ride the wave of drugs back into sleep.


	6. 2010

**2010**

Clint opened the bathroom door a crack to peer out into the motel room, letting a pleasant breath of cool air into the choking steam. He’d been seriously fucking cold when he got in the shower, but while the hot water had felt good he might have gone a little bit overboard, and the extractor fan didn’t work for shit. ‘Phil? Hey. Hand me a towel?’

It was the cold that had bothered him, not the fact that he’d just killed four people. Sometimes he thought he should be worried about that.

There was a small sound of movement, and the door shuddered slightly as the requested towel hit it. _Hand me_ obviously hadn’t been a polite enough request to make Coulson get up from the bed or look up from his book. 

‘Gee, thanks sir.’ Clint crouched to snag it from the floor. He dried himself off quickly, wrapped it around his waist and padded out to dig through his pack for clothes. ‘Phil?’ he said, once he was dressed.

Coulson was lounging on the twin bed closest to the door, shoes kicked off, jacket discarded and sleeves rolled up. ‘Hmm?’ he said vaguely, flipping a page.

‘I’m hungry. We gonna eat, or what?’

This time Coulson did look up, setting the book on the nightstand beside the two paper coffee cups and smiling his unexpected smile. Clint felt the usual pleased little stutter of surprise, and smiled back automatically. ‘Takeout?’ he suggested.

‘Sure. Thai, if there is any.’

Clint flicked through the stack of menus. ‘Yeah.’

They ordered, and Clint flopped down on the bed. He napped until the food came, out like a light in under thirty seconds and mumbling protests when Coulson said his name. ‘Fuck _off_. Trying to sleep, here.’

‘You were hungry a minute ago,’ Coulson said, popping the lids off the containers, filling the air with the scent of lemongrass and spices. Clint relented. He was starving, and the food smelled fantastic. By the time he managed to pull himself upright Coulson was already tucking into prawn panang, nose back in his book.

‘What are you reading,’ Clint asked, stifling a yawn and reaching for the pad thai.

‘Poetry.’ 

‘Seriously?’

‘Carl Sandburg.’ Coulson held out the book, his thumb holding it open at a particular page. ‘Take it.’

‘No thanks,’ Clint said, eyeing it warily from a distance. Eyeing warily from a distance was what he pretty much always did with literary stuff. He liked to read. He didn’t like books that made him feel like an idiot. ‘I’m not a poetry guy. _You’re_ not a poetry guy. Where did you even get that?’

‘My sister gave it to me,’ Coulson said mildly. ‘I like this one. It’s called [Fog](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/fog/). And I think you’ll get to the end without getting bored.’

Clint rolled his eyes, then took the book and snorted. The poem was barely longer than a Haiku. ‘You just saw me sit on a rooftop for a week solid. Nice to see you have such confidence in my attention span.’ He scanned over it, then read it again. Then again, slowly. He had to admit, there was something about the words that he liked. Simple, yet hard to pin down. He gave Coulson a half-shrug, conceding that it might, perhaps, be interesting after all. ‘Reminds me of Tasha. Creeping like a cat, and looking out over the city,’ but even as he said it he realised it wasn’t quite right. Natasha was anything but simple.

‘Really?’ Coulson said. ‘It reminds me of you.’


	7. 2011

**2011**

To Clint, dazed and exhausted from an op, the SHIELD Halloween party was a whirl of fake cobwebs, fake fog and fake blood. Half of him wanted to get out, go back to his room and collapse, but the other half desperately needed to decompress. There was action here to shock his mind out of the intensity of waiting for the shot, and there was alcohol to numb his aches and blot out uncomfortable memories.

On his way back from the bar with his fourth – fifth? – drink he saw Phil dancing with Natasha on the other side of the room. They were right by the fog machine that was spilling mist across the floor, making it look as though they were spinning and twirling in a fast-flowing river. Natasha was beautiful when she danced, almost supernaturally graceful, and Phil was leading her well, giving her the space to show what she could do. 

As the song transitioned into something smoothly romantic in three-four time, Clint sidled up to them. ‘Can I cut in?’ he said, and gave Phil time to get halfway through his polite nod before spinning him away from Natasha and into a close hold.

Phil’s eyebrow moved fractionally. Then he relaxed into Clint’s arms, letting him lead the two of them into a smooth waltz that was showy and serious at once. They danced that way through half the song before Phil firmly hijacked the turn and shifted his grip.

‘Taking charge, sir?’

Phil’s amused expression said as clearly as words, _I’m always in charge_. Clint grinned, and let himself be guided between and around the rather less adept couples swaying from foot to foot. He enjoyed dancing well, but he was tired enough that he wouldn’t have minded being one of them, just moving gently to the music. They ended the song with a flourish and bowed to another chorus of applause. Phil’s smile was out in full force, which was enough to make the whole thing worthwhile.

Afterwards they wandered to the sidelines to watch. Clint found yet another drink in his hand, and he was draped over Phil because staying upright wasn’t as easy as it should have been. Phil smelled of soap from his post-mission shower, muted by the fake fog, and he was still smiling. They leaned against the wall, laughing about nothing, and it was nice. It was really nice. Everything was good, the party was _awesome_ , and Clint put his hand on Phil’s cheek, coaxed him around and kissed him.

Phil went stock still. Then his hand pressed against Clint’s chest and pushed him very gently away. Clint took a stumbling step back. ‘Fuck,’ he said, reaching out to steady himself against the wall. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry, sir.’

‘No harm done,’ Phil said calmly. He gave Clint a light, reassuring pat on the arm. ‘I think perhaps you should go and sleep it off.’ 

‘Yeah. Shit. I didn’t… I’m sorry.’

‘I know. Drink some water and go to bed.’

***

He’d been banging on her door for at least five minutes. ‘Natasha. Nat. Let me in.’

Finally, she opened it, sleep-rumpled and glowering. ‘I am not pleased with you,’ she told him, stepping back so he could come inside, ‘for several reasons.’

He sat down on her bed, then tipped over sideways until he could bury his face in the still-warm pillow. ‘I kissed Phil last night.’

‘I know that, dummy. Everyone knows.’

‘Fuck. _Fuck._ ’ Of course the SHIELD gossip mill would already have exploded. ‘I don’t know why I’d even…’ He gave what he hoped was more manly groan than whimper. ‘Why would I do that? It’s Phil, you know.’

‘Yes. It’s Phil.’

She left him to stew in his hangover while she showered and dressed. When she was done, and still glaring, he peeled himself off the bed with a sigh and got to his feet. ‘Guess I’d better apologise again. Then he can tell me he doesn’t like me like that and we can go back to normal.’

Natasha’s hand on his arm stopped him in his tracks. ‘That’s the problem, Clint,’ she said. ‘He likes you exactly like that.’


	8. 2012

**2012**

They did go back to normal. For a while, things were quiet. Phil worked with Fury and ran Natasha’s undercover op. Clint babysat a glowing blue cube and a bunch of scientists who weren’t quite as smart as they thought they were.

And then there was Loki.

There was _Clint_ and Loki.

‘Don’t do that to yourself, Clint,’ Natasha said on the helicarrier after she’d reached in and dragged him clear of the abyss. Later, in the long, painful aftermath of that day, she always seemed to be saying it. Every time she found him on the firing range with his fingers near bleeding, or in the wreck of his room with everything he owned scattered around him, as smashed and broken as he was. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she told him. ‘Don’t let it destroy you. Don’t let him win.’ Sometimes she would talk to him about Phil. ‘He’ll be fine,’ she’d say, ‘he’s getting better.’ She said it as though it should help.

She didn’t understand. It wasn’t guilt that was ripping him apart. It was terror.

He was always waiting for the blue fog to rise again, blotting out his vision. He could feel it there. He _could_ , whatever the tests and the shrinks said, and no matter the part he’d played in their painful, too-late victory. Loki was still inside him.

Phil was alive and recovering. Clint wasn’t. He wasn’t real any more.

They let Phil have visitors for an hour each day. Clint would spend that hour hunched in one of the chairs against the wall while other people came and went. He arrived five minutes early, or ten, or fifteen, prowling outside the closed door, and he stayed until one of the nurses kicked him out.

Phil talked to him in the spaces of time when they were alone. Clint couldn’t respond. He felt as voiceless as a real hawk, only able to scream.

The rest of the time, he did his work, he trained, he ran simulations and drills. He joined in discussions about what went wrong when Loki came, and what to do for the inevitable next time. He lied to his shrinks because they didn’t believe him. He was panicking and cracking and he could feel the mist waiting to engulf him.

He held out for nearly three months before he woke seeing blue. After five minutes of shaking and quietly begging to his reflection in the mirror he stumbled into the infirmary in pyjama pants and no shirt, tugging open the only door he felt would open to him. ‘Phil?’

‘You can’t go in right now, Agent Barton,’ a worried nurse said behind him.

‘No,’ Phil said sharply, ‘let him in.’

Clint folded up into the chair by the bed, gasping for air. It felt like he was drowning. ‘Loki’s _here_. He's inside me. Why won’t anyone believe me?’

‘Clint, breathe. You’re OK.’

’No, I’m not! You don't understand, I'm _his_ , I belong to him now.’

‘You’re not his,’ Phil said, grasping his hand. ‘You’re Clint Barton. You’re all your own.’

‘I’m not. I can’t fight him. Phil, please. Please.’ He didn’t know what he was asking for, but he knew that whatever it would take to make Loki let go of him, he couldn’t do it.

‘OK,’ Phil said, instantly changing track. ‘Clint, look at me. Just for now, you’re mine.’ Gently, he lifted Clint’s hand and pressed his lips to the back of it, soft and dry. ‘You're _mine_. That means he can’t have you.’

It was a platitude. Logically meaningless. But since Loki came it was the only promise that Clint could even begin to believe.

‘Yeah,’ he whispered. ‘OK. Yours.'

Phil hesitated for a moment. Then, as though he somehow understood the need for proof, he said, ‘I’d like to kiss you.’

Clint nodded wordlessly, squeezing his eyes closed. He let Phil press kisses to his cheeks and his forehead, kiss away the tears, kiss his tight-pressed lips. Finally he felt his muscles begin to unfreeze. He met Phil’s mouth with his own. It was tender, almost chaste, but it was claiming him in a way he could trust.

That claim kept him alive, those next few weeks. It kept him sane. Phil’s murmurings of _’You’re mine,’_ and, ‘ _You’re safe,_ and, ‘ _I love you,_ ’ kept the threat of the mist from his mind. Phil kissed him when he was scared. Phil was kissing him at the moment when he finally realised that the shrinks had been right. Loki was never there at all.

That day, Clint asked, ‘Does it have to be just for now?’

Phil paused, sitting back, separating them with a few inches of space. ‘You know how I feel,’ he said quietly. ‘But I don’t think you really want this.’

‘I think, maybe…’

Phil’s expression was half fond, half weary. He took Clint’s hand and ran his thumb over the callused palm, tracing the lines before lifting his head so their eyes met. ‘When you’re doing better, we’ll talk.’

***

He was doing better, slowly, day by day. So was Phil, well enough that he could monitor the comms on their missions, support the long-suffering Sitwell from the comfort of HQ. 

It was on a routine mission mopping up some escaped mutant rats that something inside Clint eased. The next time Tony called him a stupid name he found himself rolling his eyes and returning the quip. He heard Tony’s laugh, and it was natural to respond. They tossed barbs and one-liners back and forth as smoothly as if they’d practised it, until Steve sounded like he was ready to strangle them both.

‘Let’s keep it professional,’ Sitwell said, in a voice entirely devoid of hope. 

‘Hell no,’ Tony said. ‘Not when I finally found someone with a sense of humour on this team.’ Then, with puzzlement plain in his voice, he added, ‘Since when are you so chatty, Silent Bob?’

‘Since he was born, by all accounts,’ Phil said wryly over the comms. ‘We can thank Loki for a few months of quiet. I was enjoying it while it lasted.’

‘You are a cold bastard, sir,’ Clint said, grinning and loosing another arrow.


	9. Soon

**Soon**

The cabin was up the trail from a car park with an entrance nearly concealed from the main road by grey dogwood shrubs and ninebark, reddish and with leaves like fistfuls of arrowheads, that gave way in a soft rustle against the side of the car. It was supposed to be less than an hour’s walk, but it took them two, even with Clint carrying both sleeping bags and most of the supplies. He began to regret the whole trip and his part in arranging it by the time Phil sat down for the fourth time to gulp steadily at his water bottle. 

When they reached the shallow valley of wet tundra, the wooden building blended into the brown and red grasses as if it had crumbled out of the earth like the boulders strewn across the hills. The key fitted the woodshed, but the front door itself wasn’t locked – a sign inside said hikers were welcome to stay as long as they kept the place dry and tidy. There weren’t many big trails through the area, though, and the dust was thick on the candle-scoured table and plastic mattresses. There was a cast-iron wood burner and two dormitories filling the top floor beneath slanted ceilings with thick beams. 

Clint could imagine a scout troop of screaming children, girls in the small dorm and boys in the big one, chasing each other across the grassy hillocks with sticks for guns and tall weeds for enemy soldiers. He had to imagine it, of course, having never been offered a lot of scouting opportunities in his own childhood. The idea was inviting, but alien.

They cooked pasta topped with various ration packs from SHIELD’s stores. The short walk had been enough to get Clint’s appetite going. Phil ate in small, measured portions, pushing his plate away half full and rubbing his sternum. Clint could imagine the scars inside him, like machine pipes stretched and welded together, his heart beating through the fibrous net where the gash and the dissolvable stitches had melted away. He finished Phil’s meal for him, and did the dishes himself.

In the morning, he pulled on a sweater and track pants and went outside to find the world had vanished in the early morning fog. The outhouse was round the back of the cabin but he’d always hated them, so he pissed in the bushes, tucked himself back in and walked into the forest, stepping carefully through the damp moss, not sure if he was tracing the worn path or heading in a completely different direction. He followed the slight slope and, soon, the sound of water. The stream was nothing more than a trickle, the rocks stained brown with tannins, but the water clear as glass. He washed his hands and stayed crouched for a moment, looking at the grey stones beneath the shivering water, then rolled up his sleeve and reached in. The icy water set a dull ache into his muscles as he picked up a perfectly flat, round stone from the bottom of the stream.

He could trace his path back easily enough now that he’d had time to absorb the route. The dew had stained dark his sneakers and the bottom of his pants by the time the shape of the cabin appeared through the mist. He paused as he brushed past a scraggly shrub and watched Coulson walk out onto the deck.

In his grey sweater, with a woollen beanie tucked down over his ears and a plastic mug clutched to his chest, Phil looked older and thinner than ever. He was like a sea captain in the expanse of fog, staring out from the prow of a long-deserted ship. Clint swallowed around a breath of cold air. Somehow it felt like he was seeing the man in front of him for the first time. Not the guy in the suit who came for the kid with no future. Not the cold-hearted bastard and the man who wouldn’t shoot, not even the handler with his roasted almonds and too-mouthy asset. Just Clint and Phil adrift in their cabin. Not related, not really – all just ships in the fog, but always together. And he liked that.

As he watched, Phil raised two fingers to his mouth and whistled, loud enough that Clint was sure it would blow the mist away. 

‘Clint!’ Phil called into the white, empty world. ‘Coffee!’

He still had the round stone growing warm in his palm. Why’d he even picked it up? Just something to do, he supposed, just Hawkeye already getting restless without a mission. He dropped it into the moss. 

When he slipped out of the fog, Coulson just smiled at him like he’d known he was there all along, and held out the mug. ‘Two sugars,’ he said.


End file.
